Adventures in Slab Cracking

[Kutcher55]

Since I got back into the hobby a little over two years ago, one of my projects was to have pretty much all the good rookie cards from 1960 to 1990 in raw, ungraded form. I'm making progress but it hasn't been priority for me and I still need a few.

Anyways, up until this year, I had only cracked one slab in my entire life. It was an old label SGC 5 Thurman Munson rookie card. I got it done without harming the card and added it to my ungraded RC run. Then I went over a year without cracking another one. A few months ago I bought a PSA authentic Willie Stargell rookie card that looks like it should be a 6. I cracked it out and it measured fine. My theory is that the color is faded and that got it the A rating but I'm not certain about that. Either way it looks a heck of a lot better in my raw collection than it does in a PSA holder with the stupid A rating.

Lately, my slab cracking has become somewhat of a chronic habit due to my decision to build a raw Hank Aaron run. What I have found is that you can often find better deals on low grade slabs than you can on modest raw cards because raw card sellers tend to overrate the condition (and thus value) of the card. Plus, by buying slabs you reduce (not eliminate) the chances that the card has been altered. I bought a nice PSA 1 '57 Hank with great eye appeal and cracked that baby out. What a rush! Then I bought my first rogue slab, a 1964 Hank graded ISA 3.5. It was about as challenging as a PSA to crack out and I was glad to see the card measured fine and probably was at least a legit 3. Because it was in an odd holder eschewed by most collectors I ended up getting a good deal for what amounted to a roll of the dice. Recently I have upped the ante and purchased a '63 Aaron PSA 4. I can't wait to crack it. Slab cracking is highly addictive. It makes me feel like a bit of a rebel, I guess.

There are some good Youtube videos on slab cracking -- for me it's a simple formula. You take a pliers or a wire cutter and hold the slab down on a desk. Then you want to rip or tear open the upper corner of the slab away from the card itself. Before doing so you want to apply pressure with your hand or a book on the part of the slab that contains the card so that that part of the plastic doesn't flex when you are ripping open the corner. That will prevent creasing. Also, make sure to wear goggles or glasses to eliminate the risk of a small piece of plastic shrapnel embedding itself in your eyeball. Once you have cracked the corner, get yourself a flat head screwdriver and slide it in the void. Then, with great patience you want to start shimmying the screwdriver in between the two sheets of plastic that sandwich your soon-to-be-liberated card. Focus only on the outer edges. The slab will separate bit by bit. This takes a bit of skill and you have to make damn sure not to have the screwdriver slip and gouge your card. Eventually the slab will pop open and you can discard the mess in a brown paper bag. I have been saving the paper flips just so I have record of the original slab since I recognize I'm probably hurting resale by doing this. But I don't really care too much about that.

Please note, I have never tried this with a BVG slab. I have been told those are considerably tougher. If anyone has any advice in that regard, I have a McCovey and Palmer RC in BVG slabs that I'm afraid to mess with.

[butchie_t]

To a degree, I do the same thing. Buy slabbed cards when the price is right and set the player free! Only to end up in the particular set I am working on at the time.

However, I did get some of my cards graded and will do so in the future. Just to sell though.

The thing I do differently when it comes to cracking the cases is I take the entire top portion of the slab off. Heavy duty wire cutters do the trick for me. I find it makes it easier to release the card from its surly bond of containment. And indeed, watch out for flying plastic.

Cheers,

B.T.

[CardPadre]

I crack relatively often as well, and have done so on all the major company’s slabs I believe. One thing I now use instead of a flathead screwdriver (which I used at first), is a thin putty knife to work around all the edges after you clip a corner off.

I hold it by the blade with only enough showing to get through the edge, pretty much eliminating the risk of your tool slipping and going into the card area. The wider blade gives you more to hold onto and, I think, better control than a screwdriver.


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[darkhorse9]

My method of cracking is a bit more aggressive.

I lay the slap between a folded towel, set the towel on the floor...take a hammer and start slamming the heck out of the top of the slab where the flip is.

Once that part is well crushed I take a flathead screwdriver and pry the rest apart easily.

Never had a damaged card from it.

[Kutcher55]

Wow some great tips. It’s clear I can up my game a bit.

[jchcollins]

I've kind of stopped, but in my "career" since re-entering the vintage hobby probably about 6 years ago, I'm going to guess I've cracked around 50 different slabs. My OCD used to get to me with cards that moved around in their slabs. It's just visually upsetting on some level, and I used to be afraid that the rails on PSA slabs would somehow damage the card. Years later, I'm convinced I was wrong on this point. The cards move yes, but I think the physics of things within the slab itself is kind of such so that no real damage can be done. Yes, your card might hit the rail with an edge, but 99% of the time it's just not going to be moving fast enough or with enough force to hurt it. I wouldn't advise using your Mantle slabs as air hockey pucks, but all that said - I've never seen a PSA card truly "damaged" just by subtle movement within the slabs.

I stopped cracking upon that realization and plus - if you occasionally sell cards of any value - it's still just far easier to move a graded vintage card for the price you want than a raw one. Fact of life. I've always had a high level love / hate relationship with grading anyway: Raw cards are beautiful, and I've known how to grade myself for more than 30 years. But a properly graded card in a nice slab with no problems is also a thing of beauty - and in some odd way satisfies my need for order and alignment in the universe.

Beckett slabs aren't actually as difficult as their reputation to bust. They are thicker, yes - but the plastic quality has always been kinda cheap and shoddy. When new the plastic is super clear and looks to be high quality, but it's not - it's very brittle and snaps easily. Clip a corner like you would with a PSA slab and make sure both edges of the slab are exposed. BVG is different from the others in that their slab works more like a shoebox. The top lid fits over the bottom larger part like a box closure. Once you snip the sides and figure this out, it's fairly easy to work a tool around this setup and sometimes even lift the top of the "box" off...

[ALR-bishop]

This and a small irrigation screw driver....25 seconds. No damage yet after hundreds of crack outs

[Volod]

I'm kind of a klutz with destructive tools. I've only tried once to crack a slab - it was a 1954 Bowman star card about a decade ago that I purchased because I could not find a satisfactory unslabbed version for my entirely unslabbed set. If I recall correctly, I took a large wire cutter to the corner of the slab and squeezed as hard as I could, the slab cracked into about three pieces, one of which dug into the card surface and immediately cut its value by about, I don't know, eighty - ninety percent. That was the end of my cracking career, but I enjoy reading about others' experience with it.
Al - what the heck is an "irrigation screwdriver?" Never heard of such a thing.

[jingram058]

I too have cracked every graded card I ever got. Graded cards makes it seem like an "investment". I'm not investing, it's still a hobby to me. Yes I have a 33 Goudey Ruth and numerous other "investment" cards that I got before all this grading baloney came into being. I'm just in it for the cards. I am not an OCD card speculator.

[G1911]

I've probably cracked a thousand+ slabs and completely ruined POP reports for a couple sets. I hate BVG slabs, they're a pain to crack. PSA is the quickest, I've found. I like my sets uniform and raw, some in slabs some not is annoying, and I'm not paying an unknown person to tell me what my card is and how nice it is. My eyes tell me that for free. They also take up a lot less space in cardboard boxes, with no slabs or sleeves in sight, all raw.

[jingram058]

Originally Posted by G1911

I've probably cracked a thousand+ slabs and completely ruined POP reports for a couple sets. I hate BVG slabs, they're a pain to crack. PSA is the quickest, I've found. I like my sets uniform and raw, some in slabs some not is annoying, and I'm not paying an unknown person to tell me what my card is and how nice it is. My eyes tell me that for free. They also take up a lot less space in cardboard boxes, with no slabs or sleeves in sight, all raw.

Completely agree!

[egri]

I keep going back and forth about whether or not to crack out what I have slabbed. If PSA/SGC/Beckett all kick the bucket that will make the decision easier, but for now I'm leaving them in. Back when I was more active sending out TTMs, I remember cracking out a few SGC slabs. The process was fairly involved; I recall wrapping the card portion of the slab in a towel and sticking it in a vise, then using a hammer and chisel to crack open the label part of the slab, and from there just tearing the thing open. This was the first card I liberated in that way (unsigned at the time).

[IMG] [/IMG]

[Kutcher55]

Well as mentioned in the original posting, I had a '63 Aaron PSA 4 that I decided to crack, and here's how it went.

The card started out looking like this. Decent card, nothing special but nonetheless a great card of an all time great player. To me, there's Ruth, Aaron and everyone else:



Here's my pliers right before I pin down the card with my hand and rip open a top corner.



Here's the result. Not so precise, but that crack that went down the face did not damage the card, thankfully.



Here's where I used a flat screwdriver to crack open the two plexiglass slabs sandwiching the card. This process did not go smoothly. I came very close to gouging the card several times, but I think the fact that the card was recessed kept me from gouging the card. The guy who said to use the putty knife is probably 100% correct. I need to get one.



Here's the freed '63 Hank Aaron. What a beauty!



And finally here it is after I put it into a different slab, a one touch that I don't particularly like (Oh the irony). But I do like the way it looks next to the other raw cards. And so, I declare mission accomplished!



PS: Note to PSA - please remove card from pop count data.

[GasHouseGang]

Wait a minute. You busted it out of a PSA slab and then put it back into a different plastic slab? What's the point?

[Kutcher55]

Well at least this way I can take it out anytime I want, but yeah to your point there is no point.

[irv]

I followed Deepak100's, a member here, advice when I cracked a few BGS slabs. Worked mint for mint following his advice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzrEsDe7TqQ

[vintagebaseballcardguy]

Originally Posted by Kutcher55

Well as mentioned in the original posting, I had a '63 Aaron PSA 4 that I decided to crack, and here's how it went.

The card started out looking like this. Decent card, nothing special but nonetheless a great card of an all time great player. To me, there's Ruth, Aaron and everyone else:



Here's my pliers right before I pin down the card with my hand and rip open a top corner.



Here's the result. Not so precise, but that crack that went down the face did not damage the card, thankfully.



Here's where I used a flat screwdriver to crack open the two plexiglass slabs sandwiching the card. This process did not go smoothly. I came very close to gouging the card several times, but I think the fact that the card was recessed kept me from gouging the card. The guy who said to use the putty knife is probably 100% correct. I need to get one.



Here's the freed '63 Hank Aaron. What a beauty!



And finally here it is after I put it into a different slab, a one touch that I don't particularly like (Oh the irony). But I do like the way it looks next to the other raw cards. And so, I declare mission accomplished!



PS: Note to PSA - please remove card from pop count data.

Absolutely beautiful!